Here, fishy fishy...

I'll be the first to admit it... I am not a passionate fisher person. I am a utilitarian fisher person- if I'm hungry I'll attempt catching a fish in order to resolve the situation. Otherwise, I tend to leave them to their fishy lives.

That said, if one plans on catching a fish for dinner in the high alpine lakes of the Rubies and East Humboldts, it's best to know which lakes actually have fish in them.

Here's info from a series of charts that NDOW has up on their website, as well as some information passed along by a reader.

Angel Lake - brook, rainbow, tiger, speckled dace
Birdeye Lake - none
Boulder Lake - ?
Castle Lake - none
Cold Lakes - brook
Dollar Lakes - none
Echo Lake - brook
Favre Lake - brook
Greys Lake - cutthroat
Griswold Lake - cutthroat
Hidden Lakes - cutthroat
Island Lake - brook
Lamoille Lake - brook
Liberty Lake - brook, mackinaw
North Furlong Lake - none
Overland Lake - brook
Robinson Lake - brook
Seitz Lake - ?
Smith Lake - cutthroat
Soldier Lakes - none
Steele Lake - brook
Verdi Lake - cutthroat, rainbow
Winchell Lake - ?

There's some mixed information about Boulder, Seitz and Winchell. According to the NDOW website, Boulder has good fishing for brook trout. However, a reader passed along the information that the fish have been gone from that lake for a few years now, and that NDOW's website is out of date. The bottom line - if you're heading to Boulder Lake make alternate dinner plans.

Seitz isn't one of the lakes up there listed by NDOW as having a fish population. However, Joe Doucette from NDOW listed Seitz as one of the local alpine lakes stocked with cutthroat in a recent fishing conditions column he has in the Elko Daily Free Press. I'd tend to trust Joe on this one - he's the local.

Winchell isn't listed as having fish on NDOW's charts, either, and I've had that confirmed by one of this blog's readers. It's a pretty small lake (although I've pulled really nice fish out of smaller). However, the USFS trailhead sign at the Winchell trailhead shows fishing as one of the recreational options there. You be the judge, although it's quite true that "fishing" is not the same thing as "catching."

One final note - according to Joe there was a significant winter kill event at Hidden in 2010-2011. The lake has been restocked with fingerlings, and the fishing isn't likely to be good there until they grow up in a couple of years. Several friends of mine have had excellent fishing experiences at Hidden, so hopefully this round of trout will have better luck than the previous ones.